Poem: Picture of a Soul

By Elizabeth Spires

Oct. 5, 2018

If, as Wallace Stevens claimed, “the poet is the priest of the invisible,” Elizabeth Spires may well be its high priestess. In just 59 words and 15 lines, she evokes that most stubbornly upheld, philosophically contested aspect of human consciousness: the soul. Why should my introduction presume to explain further and risk toppling this delicately poised lyric with superfluous discourse? Read it through, slowly — once, twice — then look up and let go of the breath you didn’t realize you’d been holding. Selected by Rita Dove

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Rita Dove is a Pulitzer Prize winner and former United States poet laureate. She edited “The Penguin Anthology of Twentieth-Century American Poetry,” and her “Collected Poems: 1974-2004” was published in 2016. A professor at Goucher College, Elizabeth Spires is the author of seven collections of poetry, including “A Memory of the Future,” published this summer by W.W. Norton.